Weighing food after years of counting cals

KA162

Hi! This is my first time posting, but I have a question that’s been bothering me for a while. A few years ago I lost a lot of weight (almost 100 pounds) without weighing food at all, granted I was eating too little, therefore I was in a deficit with a lot of extra room. Anyway, I consider myself to be pretty well versed in the realm of calories. I can tell you the calories in a serving of most everything off the top of my head. I’ve been counting calories for years, and I have gotten very accustomed to portion sizes (I’m no longer surprised by how small servings are at all). I typically measure or weigh my breakfast and lunch, however I don’t always cook dinner, and therefore can’t measure everything perfectly. I try to have a general idea of everything that goes on my plate, and I always add 50-100 calories of oil just to be safe.

I’m currently trying to lose weight after gaining some back, and I haven’t seen super fast results. I’ve been pretty inactive this month due to travel, so I’m likely not in more than a 400-500 calorie deficit. I weighed about 30 days into a sustained deficit and had only lost 3 pounds. I’m not starting from a very overweight place, and I’ve not been working out (I’m getting back into waking, gym, and pilates this week). For these reasons I have made the assumption I'm just losing very slowly. My main concern is that it could be the lack of weighing dinner that’s causing slow weight loss. I have seen so many people say the reason for not losing weight is eyeballing portions, and it’s really started to get into my head. I know I have a lot of knowledge around calories and serving sizes, but maybe it’s not enough? Would you all say I can actually lose 25 pounds in the next four months without weighing every single thing?

As an example, a few nights ago I didn’t cook. The dinner was couscous, tilapia, and salad. I measured a cooked portion of couscous with measuring cups, eyeballed salad (just non-starchy veggies) and added no dressing. I logged tilapia as 1.5 fillets because it looked to be a decent size. I also adding around 70 calories of olive oil to account for cooking the fish and couscous. This is basically my blueprint for meals I didn’t oversee or cook. Does it seem detrimental to my progress? I really want to see results. I don’t have the option to cook every dinner, which is stressful. I even try to stay 100-200 below my allotted deficit of 1500 calories in the case I’m underestimating. I really do know almost everything there is to know about all of this, and so it’s freaking me out something out of my control could be a problem.

Anyway, sorry this was long, I’d love any advice or insights into my situation!

rudyzenreviews

3 lbs in a month is still good progress! Eyeballing lean foods like fish and veggies isn’t going to ruin your deficit, especially since you add a buffer for oils. You don’t need to weigh every single dinner to see results and moreover consistency matters more than perfection, and you’re clearly on top of things. Keep at it, you’re doing great!

claireychn074

For me personally I need to weigh EVERYTHING. The skimmed milk in my tea adds up to c60 cals over the day. The extra piece of fruit can be 80 calories, and don’t get me started on my portion creep on butter, jam or marmalade. Just 100-200 calories per day is enough to derail a slow rate of loss and that’s incredibly easy to eat without realising.

On a separate note, you may need to adjust your expectations re rate of loss. Aim for c1 pound per week and you’re more likely to keep the weight off. Losing aggressively is often counterproductive in the long term.

AnnPT77

Can I be super honest?

Looking at this in terms of "detrimental to progress" is a little worrisome to me, in a context where you've already told us you have a history of eating too little, are staying 100-200 calories below your current goal, getting back into 3 types of exercise all at once, and have practices like adding extra oil calories "just in case".

Weighing food is more precise. That's it. It's not the be-all, end-all. Progress can happen with it or without it. Weighing makes the process more predictable, not necessarily faster, let alone better.

You say you may have only been in a 400-500 calorie deficit and less active for the past month. Losing 3 pounds in a month suggests an average daily deficit around 350 calories, so not far off. If you're increasing activity compared to the past month, and keeping calorie intake similar, your deficit will obviously increase.

Do you need to be more precise than that? Up to you. But I'd think about whether it might begin to feel more obsessive or compulsive to chase that precision. That's a question that will vary from one person to the next. Over-focusing on calorie intake can be a step on a slippery slope to a worse relationship with food and eating for some.

You say you are "not starting from a very overweight place", which suggests to me that a gradual weight loss rate would be the most health-promoting. Without knowing your current weight, 3 pounds in a month could very well be that rate.

You ask "can I actually lose 25 pounds in the next four months without weighing every single thing". My reaction is "do you weigh enough to make that sensible?" That would be losing a bit over 1.5 pounds per week. A common rule of thumb suggested here is to keep weight loss in the range of 0.5-1% of current body weight per week, with a bias toward the lower end of that unless severely obese and under medical supervision for nutritional deficiencies or health complications.

That 1.5 pounds a week would be 0.5% of 300 pounds, 1% of 150 pounds. If the other aspects of our life are relatively low in health conditions, physical or psychological stress, and that sort of thing, we might be able to push that boundary a bit, but if I were 150 pounds (which I have been), I'd be thinking more in terms of 0.75 pounds per week as a good target. Your call, though - and you know your actual current weight.

Also, if you've already started increasing exercise, starting new exercise or increasing exercise load can temporarily increase water retention, distorting short-term scale readings as a feedback metric.

Best wishes going forward!

KA162

Just as an update, if this helps, I’m 5’4 and weigh about 160 pounds. While this sounds high for my height, I have always weighed more than I look (even doctors have been supersized by my weight), and I have a broader bone structure. I feel like my goal is pretty reasonable, but my main question is do I have to be in a perfectly precise deficit to reach it, when I realistically can’t. Also - to reply to the concern, I do have a history with a restrictive eating disorder, but I am recovered and monitored by a doctor and nutritionist. In regards to my activity level, I love to walk and so get around 7-10k steps in daily, I do pilates for 15-20 minutes most mornings, and do moderate cardio and lifting 3x weekly at the gym. This isn’t a new workout plan, and it works for me! I just wasn’t able to keep it up while traveling, but it is my normal routine. I don’t do any intense cardio and I’m not doing hours of any workout daily.

I think that while I am physically eating enough, the mental aspects of restrictive eating may still linger in small ways, so that’s something I’ll take into account throughout the process. Thanks for the reply’s!

sollyn23l2

I don't use perfectly precise, I allow a range of 100 calories above ot below goal.

AnnPT77

A deficit is necessary for weight loss.

Precision in the deficit isn't necessary for weight loss: Only the deficit itself is necessary.

Precision in the deficit makes the timeline for weight loss more predictable.

A predictable timeline isn't necessary either.

All of that is IMO just facts.

This is an opinion: You are already intentionally being imprecise in your calorie counting. That's what eating a couple hundred under goal, adding extra oil on speculation, and that sort of thing are: Intentional imprecision. All of that is intentional imprecision driving toward more deficit, faster loss, or at minimum avoiding undercounting calories eaten by intentionally increasing the count and lowballing the goal.

Would weighing food achieve more precision? I think not if you keep doing things like that at the same time. I think it might just make the whole process and experience more psychologically consuming. Maybe. Maybe not.

Your exercise sounds great. If you lose three pounds or thereabouts again next month, that's just the tiniest bit under half a percent of your current weight per week. That sounds pretty perfect to me. Besides, if you're increasing exercise, you'd expect to maybe lose a little faster. A pound and a half per week - twenty five pounds in four months - sounds very fast, IMO too fast for best health and appearance.

I'm not quibbling with your goal weight in the slightest.

Wishing you success, both with weight management and its mindset.